January 20, 2025 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Planned Commission ARB for January 20th. If you have any electronic gadgets, please silence them at this time. Ryan?

Steve Lichtenfeld? Here. Helen DiFate?

Steve Lichtenfeld? Here. Helen DeFate?

Susan Buse?

Jim Arsenault? Here.

do we have uh well let's see we have minutes from the previous meeting on january 6th are there any changes seeing none do we have a motion

i move to approve as submitted second

all in favor aye opposed okay thank you at this point uh We have an open forum. If anyone has any comments or questions about anything that would come before the plan commission ARB, that is not on tonight's agenda. If you do, if you have signed up, please come forward. No? Okay. Well, then we will move forward with new business. And the first item is 7701 Forsyth Boulevard. And we'll get started with the staff report first.

The applicant is seeking a conditional use permit to allow the operation of Missouri Athletic Club. The property is located at the northwest corner of Hanley and Forsyth. It's zoned M3 and is developed with a commercial and office tower. Missouri Athletic Club will occupy space previously housing the St. Louis Club. Proposed use would include a combination of dining space, lounge bar, meeting rooms, and cigar lounge. Hours of operations are 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. Deliveries would be made between 7 a.m and 5 p.m via the freight elevator. The tenant will use the building's existing trash and recycling services. The combined spaces would total 44,000 square feet and would include approximately 295 seats. Parking would be managed via the building's attached garage with 30 spaces provided for employees and 50 for patrons. Ballet service is proposed. Staff are of the opinion that the use meets the requirements contained in the regulations governing conditional uses. Staff recommend that the Planning Commission recommend approval of the CP to the City Council as submitted.

Okay, thank you. The applicant, come on up. Identify yourself and give us any more information you'd like to share.

Good evening. Thank you all for having us here. My name is Chip Nish. I'm Chief Operating Officer and General Manager of the Missouri Athletic Club. Greg Gerber is our Director of Operations, so he'll be overseeing specifically the Clayton operation. And we also have Board Member Chris Herman here, who's helping us with the project as well as a wonderful construction background.

Do you have anything to share about the project itself?

Sure. Well, it's an extension. It's another amenity ad for the Missouri Athletic Club. It's something that we've actually been looking at for over three years, believe it or not. And ultimately what we decided to do was take this to the membership for support. And we had overwhelming favorable votes. proceed with this and how we're approaching this. Today, we have almost 2,750 members. Obviously, a space of that size can't accommodate that many. So we gave the members the option to add it on to their existing membership, and that's been our approach. And we're hoping sometime this spring that we'll find ourselves at full capacity.

Well, number one, thank you for giving us full-size drawings. That's really a delight to be able to read the print on it. But also, this is a conditional use permit, so it really doesn't depend on all the details that we're looking at. The building department will certainly look at that. I think I had only one question about the CUP. Does this include the outdoor dining that the previous tenant used?

Yes, it does. And our plan is to look at that more in the spring and summer when it's nice out, have something, a minimal food and beverage operation, cold foods, drinks, and such that we would do at nighttime for the members.

Well, we are excited to have you come in. You've got a beautiful location with a great view. So let's go around Helen.

Yes, I do have a question about valet parking. Where if I'm coming and I want to use valet parking, where do I stop?

We would have valet parking set inside the building. And we really only use that valet if we have a space that, I mean, if we have a large event that's requiring of it. But we would be right inside where, right off of Forsyth, and that would have direct access right into the first floor lobby.

okay sounds good i didn't know whether you were planning you know if i pull up on foresight that i can hop out and you'll hop in but no where you've got it inside the building if you decide to use it sounds good

susan

we agree with it and something that we're working into our dining experience uh recycling is around the building which is great uh we're looking at using alternative straws as agave and metal and even just non-use of it as well because we don't have a lot of private events space it means there's less of a need for a seamless plastic uh we have a chef coming from the east coast in fact he was on the tv show uh zero zero use chef it's it's a way where everything was actually

So he comes in with that approach as well. Yeah, and we take that seriously. Well,

Tim? I don't have any questions or concerns, but I also enjoyed the large plan sets.

Any comments from the audience? Anyone online? Okay. Okay. Well, we have a staff recommendation to approve the CUP and send it to the city council.

I move to recommend approval of the conditional use permit to the city council as submitted. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Well, we look forward to seeing it later in the spring. Thank you. Oh, now we'll move on to old business. 8145 University will do again the site plan review and the ARB review, but we'll start with Ryan at this point.

This project was continued from previous meetings and includes the demolition of the existing house and construction of the new single-family house. The following site plan revisions have been provided since the previous meeting. The house and garage roofs now drain into a flow well located in the rear yard. Proposed impervious coverage was reduced from 54.96 to 54.72, and utilities have been relocated under the driveway. An item of note on sheet 4.1 includes a note estimating the water table to be 2.5 to 4.2 feet below grade. The flow well details require at least two feet of separation between the bottom of the system and the water table. the system is designed as designed extends 7.5 feet below grade which created conflict with the estimated water table level additionally the basement varies in below grade depth with the deepest point being approximately eight and a half feet basement depths below the water table can result in challenges related to hydrostatic pressures and could result in the sump pump running continuously so staff recommending approval with four conditions. I'll save you a little bit of time and just summarize some of those conditions. The first one pertains to the requirements for signed and sealed plans. And the second is going to pertain to testing for groundwater and soils. And the third is the city standard recording requirement for the drywall. And the fourth is the standard requirement pertaining to forestry fund payments. So if you guys have any questions about those requirements, we can always go into those.

On site plan review, who's going to lead it?

Good evening. Jamie Henson with Sterling Engineering. I'd like to talk about the stormwater. It seems like that was the hang-up at the last meeting. We've designed a flow well system in the rear yard. I know there was discussions before about possibly looking at a rain garden, which we did. The site drains from rear to the front. There's about a seven foot difference in grade from the backyard to the front yard. So collecting all of the roof drains into a rain garden would only be achievable mainly in the front yard, and it would be quite large. The way the rain garden works Instead of really, I mean, it's a water quality feature more than it is a detention feature. So the roof drains would drain into the rain garden, slowly seep through the bottom of the rain garden and discharge. There would be an underground pipe that discharges out and that would basically discharge right at the sidewalk. We believe you would have more discharge from a rain garden up front, then actually a flow well system in the backyard. So what we've done to achieve that is we've driven that flow well system down deep. Like I said, the rear yard drains to the front, so the higher elevations in the back, we had to drive that flow well system, down to collect all the roof drains. The staff brought up the question about the existing groundwater. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a website that specs out groundwater elevations, and it's fairly generic. It's based on random information that they have in the area. With this site... That particular website says that the groundwater is somewhere between two and a half feet at the highest level to maybe four feet at the lowest level. If you pick across the street, you get the same information. Across the other side of University Drive, those properties are flat. You can see that there's stormwater issues to the east on the opposite side of the street. So we believe that the groundwater elevations may be true and accurate on the south side of University, but with the slope of the terrain and being above the street like we are, we don't suspect that we're going to run into the groundwater elevations Like the website may say, but we are recommending a soil test by the technical engineer. So that 1 thing, the depth of the. Flow well system, even though the bottom is 7 feet below grade. The difference in elevation from the front to the back is seven feet. So we don't see that we're going to have a groundwater issue. I'm open to any questions.

So then if the bottom of the well is seven feet, which hopefully would be above the Eight and a half feet?

Correct. The bottom of the well is seven feet, which is actually right about the same elevation as the street out front.

Okay. But I'm sure, well, I hope you've read all the comments that the staff has put together.

Yes, sir.

With all the requirements to check that out.

Yes, absolutely.

Then from previous reviews, this seems to be very simple. If I'm reading it correctly, both the house and the detached garage roofs will all drain into the flow well system.

Yes. Yes, they will.

Nothing else will drain to the front. No.

Once the flow well system may fill up, although we're detaining the 15-year, 20-minute storm, we're over-detaining that amount. Once and if that flow well system would fill up, we are piping that. Instead of discharging it at the back of the house, we are piping it around the east side of the lot and discharging it north of that existing tree that we're saving, and there's a landscape bed there. So that should absorb any overflow that we have from the drywall system.

And that is a minimum of 10 feet away from the eastern property line?

Yes.

And well north of the south property line? Yes,

Yeah, we thought that was the best discharge location. Being behind the tree, there is a small retaining wall there. There's some landscaping. Thought that would be the best discharge point rather than bringing it closer to the street and having more flow potentially over the sidewalk. Would that retaining wall retain water also? No. It'll slow it down for sure. You know, it's holding the landscaping back. So there will be plants in there. I don't think you're going to see that much discharge from that pop-up emitter to not be absorbed in that area. Doubtful that it would be enough to penetrate the retaining wall.

With the clay soil that we have in the area, what effect will that have on the flow well over discharge?

What we've seen on some other projects is that, and that pertains to the groundwater issue as well, so the The groundwater is seasonal in this area. So, and it sets on top of a. Poorly permeable clay soil. Layer so what we've seen with other soil test. is that once you reach a depth of five, six, seven feet, you start to penetrate out of that clay and start to get into a more sandy clay. So you may get a better absorption. But we'll leave that up to the geotech report for sure.

Well, assuming that the geotech report supports everything in here to make it work, how confident are you that the water will be controlled within the site, not flowing south toward the sidewalk, nor east, nor west to other properties?

Definitely not east or west. And we've I think we've came up with the best opportunity to keep all the stormwater from the roof drains on the site.

I noticed that on the architectural end, the roof detail and design is quite different. Does that have any bearing on the water being taken off? It looks like a very low slope on the top and a very steep slope near the edges. I

mean, you know, there's several downspouts planned. I believe four maybe, four on each side, two in the rear should be adequate to collect all that

water. Those downspouts will all go underground. The water will not see light.

No. And that's part of the reason why we did have to drive those flow wells down deeper, because like I said, with the terrain sloping from front to back of the lot, of course, the downspouts in front of the house would be harder to catch. So we're basically pushing water uphill, right? So with those flow wells deeper, we're able to gravity all of the downspouts

to the drywall. So then when the downspouts go underground, they would actually be emptying into the flow well at the bottom?

No, they'll actually be so there's 3 feet of topsoil on top of the upper elevation of the flow well. So, yeah, we do have a cross section view. There, so they do enter near the top of the flow wells and then. Absorb through the ground if there's enough large rain event that those would fill up Then they do discharge basically at the same elevation

I had one other question and that was We're we're still basically at 55% impervious the whole site i know 54.72 but let's call it 55 um that is the maximum that would be allowed on this site do you have any comment on that uh

no i mean really with the uh we believe with with the impervious area that was there before and not collecting any of that storm water yeah or We have less impervious area than what was existing, and we're collecting all of that roof area. So we think we're making the situation better.

Okay. Well, let's see if there's some other comments. I appreciate your explanation. Thank you. Ellen?

Yes, I have a question. You had two flow well systems. The front half of the house roof was one and that runoff was going to be captured by eight dry wells within the flow well system.

Yes.

Now you're putting that runoff with the rest of the house and the garage and still only have six dry wells?

Correct, but they are taller. So the flow wells that we had before were just single stack. So they were 24 inches tall. And in this situation, we're stacking one on top of the other. So we have four feet of flow well.

Okay, that still isn't the same amount of dry well. If you're taking eight and stacking it with six, you had 24 inches depth before. Now you've got 48.

Well, with the size of the drainage area around the whole system, we are collecting the same amount of water as we were before. And the difference being is we're moving it all to the back and not having a pop-up emitter in the front that in that large rain event would then overflow onto the sidewalk. Okay.

Okay, that was my only question.

Susan?

Yes, they will be

And again, with the rain garden system you know, it's a more shallow system. So it has to be up toward the surface. And the only way we could make that work is to drain everything to the front. And that rain garden would be a large footprint and even encroach into the root system of the existing tree that we're trying to save. So that entire front yard would basically be a rain garden with the discharge right at the street or at the sidewalk.

Just make sure we're on the same page. I thought you just said a second ago there were no pop ups in the front there are two pop ups

in the There are two pop-ups. One of them is from the sump pump itself, and then the other one is discharged from the flow well system in the back of the yard. Okay. I just wanted to make sure

I wasn't missing something there. I think the staff report basically covers a lot of – in this case, I think we would basically – see if it's going to work. It doesn't have to necessarily, it's not just going to work on paper. It's, you know, once we get actual testing and stuff like that, it'll have to be upsized or it'd have to be changed if it, if we don't have the, what we need to drain on site. So I think with the staff recommendations, I think we have a safety net here that maybe we didn't have before. Can

Well, we've asked for the report to go back to staff. I would feel more comfortable having staff review it and reporting back to us before we give a full go-ahead. Is that possible?

It is. The reporting, the geotactic reporting, is not necessarily a quick process. And typically, a lot of this reporting does happen. They'd go through, they'd start the demolition. Then the site is more cleared. They'll do more of this testing as they start to excavate. That while you can absolutely require it to be done beforehand, I do want to make you aware that it would potentially cause substantial delays to their project to do that. So they would have to work with that schedule under the proposed stormwater regulations that the council is considering again at their next meeting. We would in the future require some of this testing to be done prior to site plan review. In this instance, that was not a requirement ahead of time, so they did not do all that testing ahead of time. So that's where staff is recommended to align with how this project's been progressing, that they have to provide it before their permits would be issued. So it's a little bit of they're taking on kind of the – risk of that, of getting far enough to be ready for construction and then having results that require them to change the design and come back to you for approval of a new site plan. But that's kind of up to you and how you want to time it at this point.

Well, thank you for describing how it could impede construction. We've been looking at this for a few months. I don't think our goal is to slow it down any. I think our goal is get it right. And I think the staff comments and requirements should be sufficient at this point. And from Ana, your comments, we still have that final report to either let it continue or to stop it on its track.

Exactly. Yeah. If we get back a report that, um, does not support the design as it is right now, and they can't fix it by simply adjusting the footprint with that geotechnical report, then that would be an amendment we would come back to you guys for review and approval of at that point.

Yeah, so the reason we recommended it the way that we did at this point is because, like I said, it is some additional testing from... from engineers or contractors that do the geotechnical, they're not involved in the process necessarily at this point. The engineer team has done what they've done. Moving forward, developers, engineers, designers will know what level of testing is required as part of the initial site point review. So they'll be able to work that into their system. They did not know that that would be a requirement at this point with all the continuations that have occurred. So staff is comfortable kind of transitioning some of the risk, like I said, to them. So if they get started in this project and they start their excavation, they do their geotechnical, they do the water table study, and they find the water table is a lot higher, as Ryan referenced in his staff report, that's going to impact more than just their flow well systems. That would impact how they've set up their foundation for a basement and many other things that they would all have to address. So it would be something that there needs to be a little bit of a level of them being comfortable that they have enough information to design a project that they think is going to be okay and move forward. But when they do that actual check, that's when we would be able to stop the project at that time to make sure that the adjustments that are necessary are made.

Sure. So it would be a little bit of the code enforcement would come into play at that point, depending on what stage of construction that they were in. So when we issue demolition permits, part of that is also a bond. So when we have a demolition permit that's issued in conjunction with a new house being built, we issue that demo permit. There's a timeline where they have to start construction of the new house. Otherwise, then we would institute our policy that they would have to restore to grades they've to fill in the hole restore grade put down cedar straw or something of that element to to just return it to a vacant lot or if they're proceeding into the new construction then they have to maintain it per the the stormwater pollution protection other construction management elements of this so it could be something that they would slow down the footing foundation installation because they might have to change the footings that more than you would think that there are some changes to your footing plan. So they might have to install a rock or change the depth of the footing or the width of the foundation, those sorts of things to address the actual soil type and the water that you find when you go down. So that's things that they address pretty frequently under these projects.

Other questions or comments? I did have one other. The pipe taking the downspout water from the front to the rear. And then I think it's the underdrain that comes from the flow well system, hopefully rarely used at the pop-up. They are both running in that narrow east section between the house and the property

line.

Will that impede any plantings that are to go in there?

No, they shouldn't. And they're not perforated pipes either. They're solid. And they should be deep enough. And even though they show up kind of quite large on the site plan, they are only four-inch pipes.

Question, any other comments or questions from the audience? No hands up. Okay. If there are no further comments, I'm sure the entire applicant team has read and understood the staff recommendations. with that do we have a motion don't have to read the whole thing

no i move to approve as submitted with the four staff requirements

second

second

all in favor aye opposed okay thank you okay now let's move on to the architectural review and again we'll get started with the staff report

the only architectural items of note here for you is the switch that red brick and the reduction of height by about two feet eight inches but staff recommending approval of the architecture as submitted

okay

Mike Thompson, I'm the architect for the job, Thompson Design Group. We heard the comments in the previous meetings as far as the massing, considering it looked too large on the site. So went back and redesigned the elevations significantly. We brought the roof down two feet and certainly brought the massing down, took the gable ends off the front. I think got a very nice looking product. Any questions?

Well, first of all, welcome back. Thanks. And of course we have questions. I see that the roof came down. It's also a very complicated roof when I look at the roof plan. But I guess that's needed because of the different slopes. Is that the case?

Right. In order to bring the roof down with the slopes, it's a very similar roof. Well, it's been a while, but at 121 Thompson basically has the exact same roof as far as steep on the sides and flatter in the middle to make up. Would it all be in the same color when you look at the roof? Like if you drive by Tompton out, you really don't notice the change in the pitch. It all just appears as one roof.

So that 3 and 12 slope, would it be the same? I think they're shingles. Yeah, the same shingles as on the higher slope portions. So they would look and function the same way. I don't think anyone will be up there looking at the top anyway. There you

go. Yes.

Okay. I think bringing that roof down really helps. And the windows that poke up beyond the eave work quite well. You've heard these two comments before. Number one, I think we all are always concerned about being sensitive to the character and the context that the new house is going in, in other words, the neighborhood. And secondly, this house is quite a bit larger, covering However, it's hard to tell that from the street. And the lot is very narrow. And having gone over there yesterday, I'm not sure that anyone will really notice how deep the house is, even though it will be substantially deeper than either of the houses on the east or the west of it. So I think you've gone further, but let's see what other comments are. Ellen?

I like the change. I think it fits in better with the two adjacent houses. The one thing that stands out, and it may be a factor of concern black and white, and then of course the color, we don't see the adjacent in color. The door looks awfully big. When I look at it relative to 8141, is it because you've got white around it against the red brick?

Or

is it bigger?

Well, both. It's a three and a half foot by nine foot door that's shown. So it is considerably bigger, which I think like on 8141 is just a three foot by six foot eight door. So it's both bigger. And then of course, you have the limestone bands around it, I guess also go to make it look a little more prominent. Yeah.

I don't mean to break it, but is that due to the floor-to-floor height of this house on the first floor probably being 10 feet, and the one next to it is probably only 8 feet?

Correct. Right. And that's part of the issue you always get in with every, though older houses typically have 8-foot floors. Nobody wants to buy a floor now that's eight foot tall. So you kind of automatically kind of start out a couple feet in the hole there, trying to make it not look so much bigger than the houses next door.

No. No, it just, when I look at it in context, it just looks too big. A nine-foot door versus six, eight... an eight foot door. I

mean, the French doors on either side of it are eight foot tall and yes, we could go with an eight foot front door too. That would be acceptable.

Maybe that's it. It just really jumps out and there isn't a scale figure.

Oh, right. Of a person.

Which would, even if you did a six foot or a six four, your height, you know, It's a minor detail, but I'd just like to see the door a little bit shorter.

Susan?

Jim? Well, first, I guess I want to push back a little bit. I think people would be willing to buy an eight-foot ceiling height, so I don't think that people aren't willing to buy that anymore, but that's beside the point here. Okay. Can you talk about the switch from the painted brick to the red brick? What was the reasoning behind that? I

think just, of course, Mike Manlin was here in the last meeting and it was mentioned by Chris as far as the white brick. I was trying to reassure him that it mostly had to do with the massing. I think his point was, you know, you had three gables in the front, you had a lot of mass there, and then you made them white, made it worse, although he kind of admitted his house was white also. So I think that kind of Mike was trying everything he could to make the house blend in with the neighborhood, which they are not white brick. And so that was the reasoning.

Okay. And was there any reason the house was pulled off the MLS? I don't follow that. I have no idea. Okay. I think overall, I think the height is definitely brought down with the roof changes. It is a complicated roof. At least it doesn't look as complicated from the street. Still a very large house, obviously, but that size doesn't necessarily once again present itself from the street so i think this would be a workable plan

had a couple uh comments from what other members have said helen actually i like the height of that front door that it is taller than the french doors on either side it seems to me that that accentuates the entry And secondly, I agree with the red brick. I think there we're becoming more sensitive to the rest of the street. Not all the houses are red brick, but the majority of them are.

Alan, I can say also with the height of the door, I think when you go to the context rendering, it is jarring compared to the one next door. But also with it not being a solid door, I think, when you see in the rendering here, that changes things at least a bit in the sense that it doesn't necessarily... If that was a solid door and presented as this just large solid mass kind of in the front, it'd be different than... uh glass which i don't think will attract quite as much attention being that much larger than the one next door

and hopefully the final thing i have to say is and i don't remember um how much higher is the front is the first floor line in other words where you would enter the house compared to the street? I know I looked it up, but I don't remember.

I don't actually know from the street. I know we are actually because we tried to drop it, but I was told no, we couldn't. It's nine inches above the existing house that's there now. And you said you've gone out and seen that house. So we're nine inches, our first floor above. That mostly has to do with the depth of the house being greater as the grade rises up. What the civil engineer came back and said, no, the back corner of the house is at grade right now. If we drop it, then we have to start digging out the lot. Then we create strange problems on top of that. So it was decided to leave it at the nine inches.

Okay, that I can see on the context drawing pretty easily. But we do not have a series of steps going up to the front door.

No. We should be able to... Well... Part of the, due to the space and next door, the driveway pretty much has to stay at the same elevation as the driveway right now that you can go out and see. Our driveway will be the same. We think a sloped sidewalk should be fine there. Worst case, we may end up with a step somewhere in that sidewalk, but it won't be near the front door.

Well, it's just we have seen houses that have been raised up and they have a bunch of steps to the front door. And we have tried to help them come down.

Uh-huh.

Okay. It'll

have one, you know, basically from the sidewalk, you'll have one step up on the front porch and then one step into the house. Yeah.

I have to ask, any other comments from the audience? Neither. Okay. We do have a staff recommendation to approve as submitted.

I move to approve as submitted

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. You're welcome. When will we see action? Now they're waiting for me,

of course. But yes, finish the plan.

Good. Well, good luck. Oh, we really didn't look at the materials. But if you'd like to show them after the vote, I think we see them. OK, thank you. Thank you.

Well, we've come to our discussion session. And we have one of the more important things in our yearly process. And we'll discuss the annual report. All righty. Good. It's graphic.

And get my zoom out of the way here alrighty. is basically just going to be a quick summary of the like it basically it's just a quick analysis of the applications that we saw last year, but as we get into it if it will go sometimes it cooperate sometimes and there we go all right. So over 2025, we actually saw quite a bit of change in membership. So this board is made up of seven members. We're down a man right now. But we did see Bridget, Kami, Bob and David all leave us in the past year. But we did, of course, gain Susan, Chris and Darren. Plan Commission and Architecture Review Boards are two different boards that are identified in the code, but they operate as one body with the Plan Commission primarily reviewing things like rezonings, text amendments, site plans, conditional use permits, and the Architectural Review Board primarily looking at those design elements materials. And so as we get into our total applications, 2025 saw 80 applications. That's just below both the 20-year and the five-year averages. Basically, I want you to think of 2025 as like a continuation of average trends in almost every single aspect, whether it's this 20-year graph that you see or there's a five-year one that is also included in your staff report. Pretty much those trends are stable and continuing. There were a higher number of text amendments in the past year that maybe impacted numbers a little bit, but whenever I pulled those out, it still showed an increase over that 20-year span. It still showed stable across five years. Additionally, some of those past years with those higher numbers had a lot of PUD applications. Whenever you had big projects come through as PUDs, those are often like consolidations plus rezoning plus PUD site plan architecture. There's a lot of applications into one project. Well, going forward, since we've had commercial revisions, we're less likely to see those PUD requests in the future. So even if we did have some sort of increase in commercial projects in the future, I don't think you're going to see those numbers just suddenly spike since we wouldn't be having as many of those PUDs. Getting into those different application types, architecture review remains the most common type that this board sees. We did have an increase in the number of CUPs. Most of that came from restaurants, but we did have an ADU. We had short-term rental, which was new this year, and we had one for parking. There was also that increase in text amendments compared to the previous year now that we're in the process of really implementing some of those action items from the 2040 comprehensive plan. And then looking at those project types by use and to clarify on this table, we're just looking at A project only counted one time. This isn't looking at something that came back to you maybe multiple times. Projects are mostly residential throughout. They were distributed pretty consistently with 2020, sorry, 2025. I should have updated that with minimal variation. One item to note of difference is that we had more projects in 2025 with fewer applications per project compared to 2024. overall 2025 was more of a continuation of the norm nothing crazy out of the blue

looking forward do you think I think you've mentioned that we will be seeing more text amendments coming up so we'll probably see even another 250% increase coming up because I know you're working hard on them and we'll get to look at them I thought this was a beautiful, concise, total look at where we were without getting into details of any one. Do we have to approve it? Just send it on.

Yeah, well, we were talking about that. You don't have to do it. There's no official action that needs to be taken. The plan commission has to present this annual report to the board or the council. Excuse me. And depending on what text amendments you might do, it is an offer for a joint meeting and it might just be something that pops up on one of their agendas. We haven't finalized that yet.

Well, I... I was very comfortable with it, I understood it, and I see what we're coming up with in the future. In years past when we've had more commercial or institutional, I think that would have changed the ratings in here probably, but yeah, residential phase. Other comments?

Well done, well reported. Thank

We were so stable for so long with our membership, and then it's like a bomb went off in the middle of the year. So I think we're still steadying the ship here, but it sounds like we might have another new member soon.

We'll get there. Probably one at a time. Well, great report. Do we need to be at the meeting when, I believe, who's going to present? Ryan or Ana?

Last year, we just provided them with a copy of the report. Previous years, when there's been, like with the comprehensive plan, we did it during some of those joint meetings where you all are invited. We'll certainly let you know when it's going to be on that agenda. If there is an opportunity for a joint meeting at a discussion or some kind with the council, then that's the agenda we'll place it on.

Well, great job. We appreciate the work that you're doing. I know you're busy, and I'm glad to see the changes coming about. So thank you very much. I think that brings us to the end. Jim, any comments? No comments. Susan? Ellen?

Stay warm.

Thank you. Ryan? Nothing else. Anna?

No, so we have the plug for the stormwater at the council meeting on the 27th. They did the first reading at the previous meeting. Since that meeting, we did pull all of the emails from CitizenServe for engineers, architects, developers who have done new single-family houses or site plan review projects in the last five years and emailed them. with links to all of the pending requirements and etc. A couple of people have reached out just to ask for a summary rather than reading the requirements, but we haven't received any sort of significant pushback to what's been proposed for approval in that element. I'm sure... As people look through it more, we could hear more, but we've tried to make everybody very aware of the project. The next few that are coming forward. Ryan has finished creating a spreadsheet with all of the data from the neighborhood inventory. That is complete now for all the residential properties aside from the R7 district. Ryan and Hobie are going to start digging into what that means. There will be another presentation to you guys shortly overviewing what we found and what we think kind of the next steps with that data will be. Along said that, Ryan's also kicked off review of the tree and landscape regulations. So to Councilman Buse's point about the canopy coverage and that sort of stuff, that analysis has begun along with what I find very interesting spatial analysis that Ryan's doing in GIS about lot sizes and setback requirements, all of those sorts of things for our different neighborhoods to go along with the character analysis that we completed from that visual inventory. So we have a lot of very cool stuff in the works and we'll get back to those presentations of those items for you all and for the city council probably in February is a goal for an update on a lot of those.

Can you answer one quick question for me? Like that R3 zoning came up in the council meeting as far as I think it was just one portion of Old Town. And I think it was what, between like 45 or 50% green space. Can you explain kind of like why? I couldn't fully grasp as far as what Nancy was asking for there.

Sure. So basically what she was asking was she was bringing up the kind of the conflict that's created when we increase the green space requirement in the R3 district and having that support to family buildings because the setback requirements in R3 are higher. So she was kind of talking about your – You're going to reinforce single family in the R3 district because of all these combination of factors. So what we've done is frozen R3, so it's staying where it is, which is what we did for all the other multifamily districts in the proposed green space ratio requirements. And a big reason there is for the other analysis pieces that Ryan's looking at. When we talk about character, we get into that overlap of setbacks and height and floor ratio and, and green space requirements and all those things together. So the, basically what we did with our three per the council's guidance is move that ratio, that minimum green space ratio to be what it is today. And then it could be that once we add in the whole, the larger infill character analysis that we're doing, we could always change that ratio ratio then based on the setback analysis.

Thank you. Mm-hmm.

Well, with that, thank you for what's coming up. We look forward to it. And with that, we will be adjourned. Thank you everyone.